Guild Wars 2

So, now it’s one week Fractal of the Mists has been released and I already noticed many problems in party playing which make me really feel disappointed when I have to group with friends.

If you want to play in this dungeon with your guild mates it’s hard to find 4 people with your same level. So you need to force other 4 players to waste time helping you in your level or you need to play with PUGs.
Every time I’ve try to play this dungeon with PUGs (and it’s really hard even to search for PUGs of the same level) it was a total waste of time too. Someone disconnects before completing 3 fractals, or they were totally unable to coordinate without a voice chat (swamp fractal, dredge fractal…), or they were bad equipped, etc…
When you’re willing to help your guild mates playing at lower levels difficulty always someone disconnects and can’t rejoin the party, making both parts wasting time again.
If in your guild you have (in example) seven people of the same level you don’t know who to leave outside the party, and you are forced to choose… This two people left alone already know they have to play with PUGs (if they manage to find them), or the other five players have to repeat the same level again to help them.
Don’t tell me you can help other players with your second or third character cause the items dropped in the chests are account-bound so there’s no reason at all to level in this dungeon with different characters (apart masochism).
Cause I suppose normal people play 2-3 hours a day of course they will want to spend this time in their level instead of repeating lower levels again and again to help other players one by one ending in get everyone stuck and never progress.
I mean… in few weeks it will be extremely difficult to find even PUGs for odd numbers levels cause everyone will want at list to get the daily chest, and you don’t get it in odd number levels.
And trust me, these fractals are really nice, but if you are playing them again and again you’ll get bored cause they are always the same 8, so your only reason will be the loot. In the end people will search for parties to play level 10 and level 20 for the daily chests. Maybe when they’ll get their ascended rings they will stop to play there at all. So why will you spend your time for lower levels if you could do something else? It’s really time consuming and you only get less tokens, less drops, and in odd levels even no daily chest.
It’s already really really difficult to organize for the guild some parties for normal dungeons story mode cause no one feel motivated to re-play them again… I can’t imagine how hard it will be to prepare parties for all these fractals levels.
I’ve already friends who were left behind complaining, and I totally understand their frustration.
This dungeon has a nice playing style, but the level design in my opinion is a total fail.
You only need to grind and grind more… And it totally discourages friend to help and playing together. Was this the original philosophy of the game? I don’t think so.

I only agree with half your points, and i guess that’s a personal opinion.

You said its hard to get a group with the same difficulty. For me its not really a problem. Im officer in a guild of only 24 people. Me and my friends (were with about 7 people) have a core group in the guild that always do dungeons and where on about the same difficulty. We all have a job and don’t always wanna play. So we can get a full team without leaving people out without a problem.

I really really like the dungeon and have allot of fun team playing and jumping around. So i have no problem with helping guildies up a few difficulties.

So i guess its just the differences if you like the dungeon or not. Even with a guild as small as ours its no problem getting a party with skilled active and fun people. And you’ll even earn some influence and loot.

What i do agree with is the problem that if one disconnects your pretty much screwed. If where 2/3 dun and someone disconnects he/she just waits till we are dun and chats with us over Skype and just grinds or sells stuff in the meantime.

I really really really love the new dungeons. The teamwork, events, difficulty, etc. Just need some last things to be fixed.

Keep it up Anet

It should work if you have the same 5-players team every evening or so and you keep progressing together, unless someone disconnects and you have to start over again to get him at the same level. Chatting on Skype could be fun and could relieve the pain, but in the end you’ll feel frustrated.
If you have 7 or 8 people interested in the dungeon you can’t make two parties, so you have to play every level 2 times to let everyone progress.
And in the long term? When new players will join the game you have to help them maybe one by one from level one to level… 30? (or even more!)
I like the fractals too, they are all really really nice and well designed, but everything beautiful will get boring if you play it too much. And there it’s a matter of grinding and grinding again… You’ll like it the first 2 weeks, but after one month or I think most player will get bored to disconnects, don’t manage to find a party, feel left behind from old players and being forced to playing with PUGs… And I really believe in the future it will be really hard to search a party for odd numbers levels without daily chest reward.

Iridiana.9078:

It should work if you have the same 5-players team every evening or so and you keep progressing together, unless someone disconnects and you have to start over again to get him at the same level. Chatting on Skype could be fun and could relieve the pain, but in the end you’ll feel frustrated.
If you have 7 or 8 people interested in the dungeon you can’t make two parties, so you have to play every level 2 times to let everyone progress.
And in the long term? When new players will join the game you have to help them maybe one by one from level one to level… 30? (or even more!)
I like the fractals too, they are all really really nice and well designed, but everything beautiful will get boring if you play it too much. And there it’s a matter of grinding and grinding again… You’ll like it the first 2 weeks, but after one month or I think most player will get bored to disconnects, don’t manage to find a party, feel left behind from old players and being forced to playing with PUGs… And I really believe in the future it will be really hard to search a party for odd numbers levels without daily chest reward.

I see whats you mean. I really hope they will fix the D/C problem.

I dont really think it will be a problem for new players or to do the same difficulty twice. I still do all old dungeons. Last time we did AC 4 times (Story + Expl), just for a new guildie. You get alot of mats from the Fractal dungeons. Mostly i do some alone until the last boss (i can solo most) at difficulty 1-3, just to get mats easy, make some money and hopefully get a condensed mist.

And how did you get your guild and friends where they are now? I guess most of them started as PUGs. After me and most of my friends/members did a run as PUGs i added them and we did allot more and after that we even added on skype. So if i can, new players and lower difficulty players can do too. It will just be old generation and new generation thing, like in most games ive played.

Starting the dungeon with PUGs is the most difficult option. PUGs at low levels haven’t learned how to play in the various fractals. Maybe they are running a fractal for the first time and they don’t know what to do and how to manage it. At higher levels PUGs have run fractals many times and probably they know what to do. But in the beginning it’s risky to play with random people… And veteran players, as I mentioned, are not motivated at all to play at initial levels for less tokens, no ascended reward, worse drop…

Wasn’t this the game who canceled the Holy Trinity? I was so happy to play everywhere, all the dungeons, with every party possible. All my friends (with all their classes) could join without problems, without any discrimination.
Not what have we achieved? The Holy Level instead of the Holy Trinity?